common-place like the habit of arguing for arguing’s sake; nothing is
so bad for public matters as that they should be treated, not as the
data for the careful formation of a sound judgment, but as a topic or
background for displaying the shining qualities of public writers. It is
no light thing this. M. de Girardin for many years has gained more power,
more reputation, more money than any of his rivals; not because he shows
more knowledge—he shows much less; not because he has a wiser judgment—he
has no fixed judgment at all; but because he has a more pointed, sharp
way of exposing blunders, intrinsically paltry, obvious to all educated
men; and does not care enough for any subject to be diverted from this
logical trifling by a serious desire to convince anybody of anything.
Don’t think I wish to be hard on this accomplished gentleman. I am not
going to require of hack-writers to write only on what they understand—if
that were the law, what a life for the sub-editor; I should not be
writing these letters, and how seldom and how timidly would the morning
journals creep into the world. Nor do I expect, though I may still, in
sentimental moods, desire, middle-aged journalists to be buoyed up by
chimerical visions of improving mankind.
You know what our eminent _chef_ (by Thackeray profanely called Jupiter
Jeames) has been heard to say over his gin and water, in an easy and
voluptuous moment: ‘Enlightenment be ——, I want the fat fool of a
thick-headed reader to say, “Just _my own_ views,” else he ain’t pleased,
and may be he stops the paper.’ I am not going to require supernatural
excellence from writers. Yet there are limits. If I were a chemist, I
should not mind, I suppose, selling now and then, a deleterious drug on
a due affidavit of rats, then and there filed before me; yet I don’t
feel as if I could live comfortably on the sale of mere arsenic. I fancy
I should like to sell something wholesome occasionally. So, though one
might, upon occasion, egg on a riot, or excite to a breach of the peace,
I should not like to be every day feeding on revolutionary excitement.
Nor should I like to be exclusively selling diminutive, acute, quibbling
leaders (what they call in the Temple special demurrers), certain to
occupy people with small fallacies, and lead away their minds from the
great questions actually at issue.
Sometimes I might like to feel as if I understood what I wrote on, but
of course with me this indulgence must be very rare. You know in France
journalism is not only an occupation, it is a career. As in far-off
Newcastle a coalfitter’s son looks wistfully to the bar, in the notion
that he too may emulate the fame and fortune of Lord Eldon or Lord
Stowell, so in fair Provence, a pale young aspirant packs up his little
bundle in the hope of rivalling the luck and fame of M. Thiers; he comes
to Paris—he begins, like the great historian, by dining for thirty sous
in the Palais Royal, in the hope that after long years of labour and
jealousy he, too, may end by sleeping amid curtains of white muslin lined
with pink damask. Just consider for a moment what a difference this one
fact shows between France and England. Here a man who begins life by
writing in the newspapers, has an appreciable chance of arriving to be
Minister of Foreign Affairs. The class of public writers is the class
from which the equivalent of Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, or Lord
Granville will most likely be chosen. Well, well, under that _régime_
you and I might have been important people; we might have handled a red
box, we might have known what it was to have a reception, to dine with
the Queen, to be respectfully mystified by the _corps diplomatique_. But
angry Jove forbade—of course we can hardly deny that he was wrong,—and
yet if the revolutions of 1848 have clearly brought out any fact, it
is the utter failure of newspaper statesmen. Everywhere they have been
tried: everywhere they have shown great talents for intrigue, eloquence,
and agitation—how rarely have they shown even fair aptitude for ordinary
administration; how frequently have they gained a disreputable renown by
a laxity of principle surpassing the laxity of their aristocratic and
courtly adversaries! Such being my imperfect account of my imperfect
notions of the French press, I can’t altogether sympathise in the extreme
despondency of many excellent persons at its temporary silence since the
_coup d’état_. I might even rejoice at it, if I thought that the Parisian
public could in any manner be broken of their dependence on the morning’s
article. But I have no such hope; the taste has got down too deep into
the habits of the people; some new thing will still be necessary; and
every Government will find some of its most formidable difficulties in
their taste for political disputation and controversial excitement. The
ban must sooner or later be taken off; the President sooner or later
must submit to censure and ridicule, and whatever laws he may propose
about the press, there is none which scores of ingenious men—now animated
by the keenest hatred, will not try every hazard to evade. What he
may do to avoid this is as yet unknown. One thing, however, I suppose
is pretty sure, and I fancy quite wise. The press will be restrained
from discussing the principles of the Government. Socialists will not
be allowed to advocate a Democratic Republic. Legitimists will not be
allowed to advocate the cause of Henri Cinq, nor Orleanists the cause of
the Comte de Paris. Such indulgence might be tolerable in more temperate
countries, but experience shows that it is not safe now and here.
A really sensible press, arguing temperately after a clear and
satisfactory exposition of the facts, is a great blessing in any country.
It would be still more a blessing in a country where, as I tried to
explain formerly, the representative element must play (if the public
security is to be maintained) a rather secondary part. It would then be
a real stimulus to deliberate inquiry and rational judgment upon public
affairs; to the formation of common-sense views upon the great outlines
of public business; to the cultivation of sound moral opinions and
convictions on the internal and international duties of the State. Even
the actual press which we may expect to see here, may not be pernicious.
It will doubtless stimulate to many factious proceedings, and many
interruptions of the public prosperity; it may very likely conduce to
drive the President (contrary, if not to his inclination, at least
to his personal interest) into foreign hostilities and international
aggression; but it may be, notwithstanding, useful in preventing private
tyranny, in exposing wanton oppression, in checking long suffering
revenge; it may prevent acts of spoliation like what they call here _le
premier vol de l’aigle_—the seizure of the Orleans property;—in a word,
being certain to oppose the executive, where the latter is unjust its
enemy will be just.
I had hopes that this letter would be the last with which I should tease
you; but I find I must ask you to be so kind as to find room for one, and
only for one more.
I am, yours, &c.,
AMICUS.
LETTER VII.
_CONCLUDING LETTER._
PARIS: Feb. 19, 1852.
SIR,—There is a story of some Swedish Abbé, in the last century, who
wrote an elaborate work to prove the then constitution of his country to
be immortal and indestructible. While he was correcting the proof sheets,
a friend brought him word that—behold! the King had already destroyed
the said polity. ‘Sir,’ replied the gratified author, ‘our Sovereign,
the illustrious Gustavus, may certainly overthrow the Constitution, but
never _my book_.’ I beg to parody this sensible remark; for I wish to
observe to you, that even though Louis Napoleon should turn out a bad and
mischievous ruler, he won’t in the least refute these letters.
What I mean is as follows. Above all things, I have designed to prove to
you that the French are by character unfit for a solely and predominantly
Parliamentary government; that so many and so great elements of
convulsion exist here, that it will be clearly necessary that a strong,
vigorous, anti-barricade executive should, at whatever risk and cost,
be established and maintained; that such an Assembly as the last is
irreconcileable with this; in a word, that riots and revolutions must, if
possible, come to an end, and only such a degree of liberty and democracy
be granted to the French nation, as is consistent with the consolidated
existence of the order and tranquillity which are equally essential to
rational freedom and civilised society.
In order to combine the maintenance of order and tranquillity with
the maximum of possible liberty, I hope that it may in the end be
found possible to admit into a political system a representative and
sufficiently democratic Assembly, without that Assembly assuming and
arrogating to itself those nearly omnipotent powers, which in our country
it properly and rightfully possesses, but which in the history of the
last sixty years, we have, as it seems to me, so many and so cogent
illustrations that a French Chamber is, by genius and constitution,
radically incapable to hold and exercise. I hope that some checking,
Consultative, petitioning Assembly—some βουλή, in the real sense of the
term,—some _Council_, some provision by which all grave and deliberate
public opinion (I do not speak more definitely, because an elaborate
Constitution, from a foreigner, must be an absurdity) may organise and
express itself—yet at the same time, without utterly hampering and
directing—and directing amiss—those more simple elements of national
polity on which we must, after all, rely for the prompt and steady
repression of barricade-making and bloodshed.
I earnestly desire to believe that some such system as this may be found
in practice possible; for otherwise, unless I quite misread history, and
altogether mistake what is under my eyes, after many more calamities,
many more changes, many more great Assemblies abounding in Vergniauds
and Berryers, the essential deficiencies of debating Girondin statesmen
will become manifest, the uncompact, unpractical, over volatile, over
logical, indecisive, ineffectual rule of Gallican Parliaments will be
unequivocally manifest (it is _now_ plain, I imagine, but a truth so
humiliating must be written large in letters of blood before those that
run will read it), and no medium being held or conceived to be possible,
the nation will sink back, not contented but discontented, not trustfully
but distrustfully, under the rule of a military despot; and if they yield
to this, it will be from no faith, no loyalty, no credulity; it will be
from a sense—a hated sense—of unqualified failure, a miserable scepticism
in the probable success and the possible advantages of long-tried and
ill-tried rebellion.
Now, whether the Constitution of Louis Napoleon is calculated to realise
this ideal and intermediate system, is, till we see it at work, doubtful
and disputable. It is not the question so much of what it may be at
this moment, as of what it may become in a brief period, when things
have begun to assume a more normal state, and the public mind shall be
relaxed from its present and painful tension. However, I should be
deceiving you, if I did not inform you that the state of men’s minds
towards the Prince-President is not, so far as I can make it out, what
it was the day after the _coup d’état_. The measures taken against
the Socialists are felt to have been several degrees too severe, the
list of exiles too numerous; the confiscation of the Orleans’ property
could not but be attended with the worst effect: the law announced
by the Government organs respecting or rather against the Press, is
justly (though you know from my last letter I have no partiality for
French newspapers) considered to be absurdly severe, and likely to
countenance much tyranny and gross injustice; above all, instead of
maintaining mere calm and order, the excessive rigour, and sometimes
the injustice, of the President’s measures, have produced a breathless
pause (if I may so speak) in public opinion; political conversation is
a whispered question, what will he do next? Firstly, the Government is
dull, and the French want to be amused; secondly, it is going to spoil
the journals (depreciate newspapers to a Frenchman, disparage nuts to
a monkey); thirdly, it is producing (I do not say it has yet produced,
but it has made a beginning in producing) a habit of apprehension;—in
fact, I believe the French opinion of the Prince-President is near about
that of the interesting damsel in George Sand’s comedy, concerning her
uninteresting _prétendu_: ‘_Vous l’aimez? n’est-ce pas?’ ‘Oui, oui,
oui, certainement je l’aime. Oui, oui, mille fois, oui, Je dis que oui.
Je vous assure. AU MOINS je fais mon possible à l’aimer_:’ the first
attachment is not extinct, but people have begun—awful symptom—to add
the withering and final saving clause. Yet it is, I imagine, a great
mistake to suppose that the present Constitution, if it work at all, will
permanently work as a despotism, or that the _Corps Législatif_ will be
without a measure of popular influence; the much more helpless _Tribunal_
was not so in the much more troublesome times of the Consulate. And
the source of such influence and the manner of its operation may be, I
imagine, well enough traced in the nature of the forces whereby Louis
Napoleon holds his power.
A truly estimable writer says, I know, ‘that the Legislative body cannot
have, by possibility, any analogy with the consultative and petitioning
senate of the Plantagenets,’ nor can any one deny that the likeness
is extremely faint (no illustration ever yet ran on all fours), the
practical differences clear and convincing. But yet, according to the
light which is given me now, I affirm that for one vital purpose,—the
resisting and criticising any highly unpopular acts of a highly unpopular
Government,—the _Corps Législatif_ of Louis Napoleon must, and will,
inevitably possess a power compared with which the forty-day followers
of the feudal _noblesse_ seem as impotent as a congregation of Quakers;
a force the peculiarity of which is that you can’t imprison, can’t
dissolve, can’t annihilate it—I mean, of course, the moral power of
civilised opinion. You may put down newspapers, dissolve Parliaments,
imprison agitators, almost stop conversation, but you can’t stop thought.
You can’t prevent the silent, slow, creeping, stealthy progress of
hatred, and scorn, and shame. You can’t attenuate easily the stern
justice of a retarded retaliation. These influences affect the great
reservoir of physical force—they act on the army. A body of men enlisted
daily from the people take to the barracks the notions of the people; in
spite of new associations, the first impressions are apt to be retained;
you overlay them, but they remain. What is believed elsewhere and out of
doors gives them weight. Each soldier has relations, friends, a family—he
knows what they think. Much more with the officers. These are men moving
in Parisian society, accessible to its influences, responsible to its
opinion, apt to imbibe its sentiments. Certainly _esprit de corps_—the
habit of obedience, the instinct of discipline, are strong, and will
carry men far; but certainly, also, they have natural limits. Men won’t
stand being cut, being ridiculed, being detested, being despised, daily
and for ever, and that for measures which their own understandings
disapprove of. Remember there is not here any question of barbarous
bands overawing a civilised and imperial city; no question of ugly
Croats keeping down cultivated Italians; it is but a question of French
gentlemen and French peasantry in uniform acting in opposition to other
French gentlemen and other French peasants without uniform. Already
there has been talk (I do not say well-founded, but still the matter
was named) of breaking two or three hundred officers, for speaking
against the Orleans decrees. Do you fancy that can be done every day?
Do you imagine that a Parliament, whatever its nominal functions may be
(remember those of the old _régime_), speaking the sense of the people
about the question of the day, in a time of convulsion, and in a critical
hour, would not be attended to, or at any rate thought of and considered,
by an army taken from the people—commanded by men selected from and
every day mixing with common society and very ordinary mankind. The 2nd
of December showed how readily such troops will support a decided and
popular President against an intriguing, divided, impotent Chamber. But
such hard blows won’t bear repetition. Soldiers—French soldiers, I take
it especially, from their quickness and intelligence, are neither deaf
nor blind. If there be truth in history or speculation, national forces
can’t long be used against the nation: they are unmerciful, and often
cruel to feeble minorities; they are ready now for a terrible onslaught
on mere Socialists, just as of old they turned out cheerfully for awful
dragonnades on the ill-starred Protestants; but once let them know and
feel that everybody is against them—that they are alone, that their acts
are contemned and their persons despised,—and gradually, or all at once,
discipline and habit surely fail, men murmur or desert, officers hesitate
or disobey, one regiment is dismissed to the Cabyles, another relegated
to rural solitudes; at last, most likely in the decisive moment of the
whole history, the rulers, who relied only on their troops, are afraid to
call them out; they hesitate, send spies and commissioners to inquire.
‘_Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire!_’—the black and roaring multitude
rises and comes on; but two seconds, and the obnoxious institutions are
lost in the flood; nothing is heard but the cry of the hour, sounding
shrill and angry over the waste of Revolution—‘_Vive le Diable!_’ With
such a force behind them, a French Parliament, of whatever nature, with
whatever written duties, is, if at the head of the movement, in the
critical hour, apt to be stronger than the strongest of the Barons.
Nor do I concur with those who censure the President for ‘recommending’
avowedly the candidates he approves. It is a part of the great question,
How is universal suffrage to be worked successfully in such a country as
France? The peasant proprietors have but one political idea that they
wish the Prince to govern them;—they wish to vote for the candidate most
acceptable to him, and they wish nothing else. Why is he wrong in telling
them which candidate that is?
Still, no doubt, the reins are now strained a great deal too tight. It
is possible, quite possible, that a majority in this Parliament may
be packed, but what I would impress on you is that it can’t always be
packed. Sooner or later constituencies who wish to oppose the Government
will, in spite of _maires_ and _préfets_, elect the opposition candidate:
it is in the nature of any, even the least vigorous system of popular
election, to struggle forwards and progressively attain to some fair and
reasonable correspondence with the substantial views and opinions of the
constituent people.
I therefore fall back on what I told you before—my essential view or
crotchet about the mental aptitudes and deficiencies of the French
people. The French, said Napoleon, are _des machines nerveuses_.
The point is, can their excitable, volatile, superficial, over-logical,
uncompromising character be managed and manipulated as to fit them
for entering on a practically uncontrolled system of Parliamentary
Government? Will not any large and omnipotent Assembly resemble the
stormy Constituent and the late Chamber, rather than the business-like,
formal, ennui-diffusing Parliament to which in our free and dull country
we are felicitously accustomed? Can one be so improved as to keep
down a riot? I foresee a single and but a single objection. I fancy,
indeed I know, that there is a school of political thinkers not yet
in possession of any great influence, but, perhaps, a little on the
way thereto, which has improved or invented a capital panacea, whereby
all nations are, within very moderate limits of time, to be surely and
certainly fitted for political freedom; and that no matter how formed—how
seemingly stable—how long ago cast and constructed, be the type of
popular character to which the said remedy is sought to be applied. This
panacea is the foundation or restoration of provincial municipalities.
Now, I am myself prepared to go a considerable length with the school
in question. I do myself think, that a due and regular consideration of
the knotty points of paving and lighting, and the deciding in the last
resort upon them, is a valuable discipline of national character. It
exercises people’s minds on points they know, in things of which there
is a test. Very few people are good judges of a good Constitution; but
everybody’s eyes are excellent judges of good light; every man’s feet
are profound in the theory of agreeable stones. Yet I can’t altogether
admit, nevertheless, that municipalities are the sufficient and sole,
though they may be very likely an essential prerequisite of political
freedom. There is the great instance of Hindostan to the contrary.
The whole old and national system of that remarkable country—a system
in all probability as ancient as the era of Alexander, is a village
system; and one so curious, elaborate, I fancy I might say so profound,
that the best European observers—Sir Thomas Munro, and that sort of
people—are most strenuous for its being retained unimpaired. According
to them, the village hardly heard of the Imperial Government, except
for the purpose of Imperial taxation. The business of life through
that whole vast territory has always been practically determined by
potails and parish-vestries, and yet nevertheless and in spite of this
capital and immemorial municipal system, our subjects, the Hindoos,
are still slaves and still likely to be slaves; still essentially
slavish, and likely, I much fear, very long indeed to remain so. It is
therefore quite certain that rural and provincial institutions won’t
so alter and adapt all national characters, as to fit all nations for
a Parliamentary Constitution; consequently, the _onus probandi_ is on
those who assert that it will so alter and mould the French. Again, I
assure you that the French do think of paving and lighting; not enough,
perhaps, but still they have begun. The country is, as you know, divided
into departments, arrondissements, and communes; in each of these there
is a council, variously elected, but, in all cases, popularly and from
the district, which has the sole control over the expenditure of the
particular locality for every special and local purpose, and which, if
I am rightly informed, has, in theory at least, the sole initiative in
every local improvement. The defect, I fancy, is that in the exercise
of these, considerable bodies are hampered and controlled by the veto
and supervision of the central authority. The rural councils discuss
and decide what in their judgment should be then done and what money
should be so spent; the better sort of the agricultural population have
much more voice in the latter than have the corresponding class in
England, in the determination and imposition of our own county rate; but
it is the central authority which decides whether such proposals and
recommendations shall in fact be carried out. In a word, the provinces
have to _ask leave_ of the Parisian Ministry of the Interior. Now I
admit this is an abuse. I should maintain that elderly gentlemen with
bald heads and local influence ought to feel that they, in the final
resort, settle and determine all truly local matters. Human nature
likes its own road, its own bridge, its own lapidary obstacles, its own
deceptive luminosity. But I ask again, can you fancy that these luxuries,
to whatever degree indulged in, alter and modify in any essential
particular, the levity and volatility of the French character? How much
light to how much logic? How many paving stones to how much mobility? I
can’t foresee any such change. And even if so, what in the meantime?